


Stand by me

by mariesondetre



Category: True Detective
Genre: Domesticity, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-02
Updated: 2015-07-02
Packaged: 2018-04-07 08:57:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4257282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mariesondetre/pseuds/mariesondetre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is just about small domestic moments with reading inside, and it should not have taken two months to write! But sadly real life stroke again. I'm so sorry for the teasing and I hope you enjoy it!</p>
    </blockquote>





	Stand by me

**Author's Note:**

> This is just about small domestic moments with reading inside, and it should not have taken two months to write! But sadly real life stroke again. I'm so sorry for the teasing and I hope you enjoy it!

Marty's been tidying the garage, emptying some boxes which haven't seen daylight for at least five years. He puts away old case files, various rodeo trophies, and a dozen yellowed pocket books. One of them catches his eyes. It's a copy of Night Shift, by Stephen King. On the cover, you can see a red hand, half covered in bandages, with small blue eyes opening on the palm and fingers. Marty doesn't remember reading it in the first place. He puts it on the coffee table on his way to the kitchen. His throat is dry with dust and he needs a drink.

That evening, he's already forgotten about the book when he drops on the couch, quite satisfied with himself. There's now enough free place in the garage to put an exercise bike and weights. Rust, who's been out all afternoon doing god knows what, is taking a shower. Marty picks up the book absent-mindedly and opens it directly on the beginning of the first story. When Rust comes out of the bathroom, he has to call Marty twice from the kitchen before getting a vague “Mmh?” as an answer.

“What're you readin'?”  
Marty's almost startled by the question. He was already caught up in the mystery of an abandoned village called Jerusalem's lot.  
“Oh, it's an old Stephen King's book I found in the garage. I didn't even remember having it. Seems catchy though, I think I'll give it a try.”  
Rust casts a quick look at the worn out volume. He's never read King's novels, he thinks. He remembers that Claire did like some of them, but when they were married he hadn't had the time to open them, and after everything had unravelled and his life gone to hell, he didn't have a taste for horror stories. He had his own demons and monsters to deal with without reading about someone else's.

But during the following days, Marty, who isn't usually a big reader, doesn't seem to let go of the book. He finishes it in less than a week, and as soon as he closes it, he opens his laptop to google King and find another one to read. He then yells to Rust from his office:  
“Rust! D'you plan on going to the library anytime soon?”  
He hears footsteps coming toward him before Rust's head appears in the doorframe.  
“Mmh, I don't know, I think I have books to return next saturday, yes. Why?”  
“Are you allowed to borrow one for me on your library card?”  
Rust smiles. “Of course, they don't make you take a quizz to be sure you've read the books, you know! What do you want?”  
“I see there's this novel, The Stand, which is based on the same idea of one of the short stories I just read. I'd like to give it a try.”

On the following saturday, Rust comes home from the public library with his usual philosophy selection for himself and a huge volume of more than a thousand pages for Marty, who puts it down on his bedside table with his bookmark and his reading glasses.

\-----------

A few nights later, Marty goes to the bedroom earlier than usual, and settles on the bed with two pillows behing his back and the big book resting against his bended knees.  
The day has been grey and the first rain drops have started to fall while Rust and him were having dinner. They've had a busy day at work, but Marty has thought several times about this, being able to meet up at the end of the day with the characters he's starting to care about.  
About an hour later, Rust enters the room and starts to undress. He knows he needs to sleep, hasn't had a proper night in a few days, but he doesn't feel sleep coming anytime soon. As he unbuttons his shirt, he watches Marty, all concentrated on his reading, unconsciously chewing the inside of his mouth.

Once stripped to his night boxers and shirt, Rust flops on the matress and just lies there for a few minutes. He's still not sure he's gonna sleep, but at least it's good to lie down and feel his spine stretch.  
Suddenly, Marty chuckles lightly to himself.  
“What?” Rust asks.  
“It's this character in my book, I keep picturing him with your face on.”  
“Yeah? Poor guy.”  
“Stop with the false modesty, you handsome bastard, and listen to this.”  
_He walked south, south on US51, the worn heels of his sharp-toed cowboy boots clocking on the pavement; a tall man of no age in faded, pegged jeans and a denim jacket. His pockets were stuffed with fifty different kinds of conflicting literature – pamphlets for all seasons, rhetoric for all reasons. When this man handed you a tract you took it no matter what the subject._  
“I can totally picture you with a Stetson hat and cow-boy boots.”  
“You're the one who wears cow-boy boots.”  
“But you're the one from Texas.”  
Rust smiles and then curls on himself, his brow pressed against Marty's side.  
“Keep reading a bit though, would ya? I may sleep after all.”  
He pulls the covers to his shoulder and sighs, sending a hot puff of air in Marty's tee-shirt.  
Marty looks at the head tucked under his elbow with a faint smile lingering on his lips. Then he opens the book again and starts reading in a soft voice. He lets himself sink in the story while Rust's breathing evens and deepens. The rain taps on the window panes.

\-----------

About two weeks after Marty started reading The Stand, he's got to go to an ophtalmologist appointment. Rust has a few errands to do and he offers to drive Marty there. It shouldn't get long, and they agree that Marty will phone him as soon as he's out. But when Marty sits in the chair, the eye doctor announces that given his age he needs to do a dilated funds examination to be sure he doesn't have glaucoma. The doctor puts unceremoniously two dilation drops in each of his eyes – it stings – and sends him in the waiting room to wait for his pupils to open. Marty then picks up his phone and calls Rust.  
“Marty, are you already finished? That was quick.  
“No, in fact I'm gonna be there a bit longer than expected. Doc wants to make a dilated eye examination.  
“Is everything alright?  
“Yes, don't worry, but maybe you should come by to pick me up because he mentioned something about having a blurred vision for a few hours.  
“Okay, I'll be there in fifteen minutes or so.”

When Rust arrives to the doctor's, Marty's in the examination room. He sits in the waiting room and gets up when he hears Marty say goodbye to the doctor.  
They enter the elevator together and when Marty makes eye contact with him, Rust is stricken by how different his eyes look when they're almost black like this, the pupil blown wide, leaving just a small blue ring on the edge of the iris. It's not the same as the way his pupils dilate when they have sex in their dimly lit bedroom. Now, Rust thinks he could almost see stars in them, and for a few seconds he feels pulled inside those black holes, as if he could dive through them right into Marty's soul.  
But then Marty, unaware of Rust's reflexions, asks:  
“Do you know if my sunglasses are in the car? Doctor said I might need'em.”

It's the end of the afternoon and the sun is shining gold and low on the horizon. Marty squeezes his eyes shut, raises his hand to shield them from the painful light. Rust has to lead him to the car, where he mercifully finds his sunglasses, but he still stays in while Rust stops to buy take away for dinner.  
At home, it's a little better. They eat in the kitchen, take a shower in turn, go about their routine with the only odd difference that Marty keeps his sunglasses on, saying he's more comfortable this way.

As the evening goes by, though, things start getting a bit tense. Marty tries checking his emails and surfing on the internet for a while, but he soon gives up because his eyes hurt. Then he flops on the couch and turns the TV on, and stays there, switching channels and visibly squinting behind his sunglasses, wiping the tears that well up, grumbling and basically making a terrible fuss.  
Rust, who sits with a book in his hands, watches from the corner of his eyes, but says nothing, until Marty blurts out:  
“Fuck, I can't do nothing with this shit, how long is it supposed to last anyway? I'd planned to continue reading tonight, I'm at this very intense moment in the book, and now my vision is completely blurry, there's no way I'm gonna be able to decipher anything!”  
Rust sets his bookmark in his book and his book on the coffee table, and says simply:  
“Come to bed then.”  
“I don't feel like sleeping, and I can feel from here that you're not in the mood for something else,” Marty shrugs grumpily.  
“I'm not suggesting either. Come to bed and I'll read for you.”  
And with that Rust gets up and starts for the bedroom. Marty, taken aback, follows him. When he enters the room, Rust is already on the bed, reaching out on the other side to take the big volume on Marty's bedside table.

Even with an altered vision, Marty is still stricken sometimes when he sees this long, slender man stretched onto his bed. The sight makes his irritation fade off, and he settles obligingly on his side of the bed.  
Rust opens the book and starts reading on the marked page:  
“ _Randy Flagg's hair was dark, tousled. His face was handsome and ruddy, as if he spent much time out in the desert wind. His features were mobile and sensitive, and his eyes danced with high glee, the eyes of a small child with a momentous and wonderful secret surprise._  
_'Dayna!' he said. 'Hi!'_  
_'H-H-Hello.' She could say no more. She had thought she was prepared for anything, but she hadn't been prepared for this. Her mind had been knocked, reeling, to the mat. He was smiling at her confusion. Then he spread his hands, as if in apology. He was wearing a faded paisley shirt with a frayed collar, pegged jeans, and a very old pair of cowboy boots with rundown heels._  
“Is this the 'me' character again?” he asks, interrupting his reading. He lowers his eyes on Marty who's sitting lower than him on the bed.  
“Yes, but I definitely don't want him to sport your face anymore. He's not a nice guy.”  
“Well, I wouldn't call myself a nice guy either.”  
“Believe me, you don't want to be him. Anyway, I've already recast you as someone else.”  
“Oh yeah? Who?”  
“You'll recognize him. People call him 'East Texas', so I didn't have much choice.” Marty looks up at Rust's face, still a bit blurry, but it doesn't matter: he knows every feature of it. He moves his hand to the back of Rust's neck and pulls him towards him, bringing their mouth together in a gentle kiss.  
“Now, do you feel like reading this story, or d'you prefer to speculate over which character you'd play if you were a famous actor?”  
Rust doesn't answer, but he sits back on his pillow and resumes his reading. Marty closes his eyes and listens to the familiar low, soft drawl, dragging him into the story.


End file.
